Digitized by the Internet Arcinive in 2008 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation Inttp://www.archive.org/details/ausoniuswitliengl02ausouoft y ; LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY 'H.D., LL.D. T. E. PAGE, Litt.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, Litt.I). AUSONIUS II ^y AUSONIUS WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY HUGH G. EVELYN WHITE, M.A. SOMKTIME SCHOLAR OF WAbHAM C'lLLEOE, OXKUKL" IN TWO VOLUMES II AVITH THE EUCHARISTICUS OF PAULINUS PELL^TTS LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS iMCM.XXI PR Czzi 1/^ CONTENTS PACK BOOK XVIII. —THE EPISTLES 3 BOOK XIX. —EPIGRAMS OF AUSONIUS ON VARIOUS MATTERS 155 BOOK XX. —THE THANKSGIVING OF ACSOMUS OF BOR- DEAUX, THE VASATE, FOR HIS CONSULSHIP, ADDRESSED TO THE EMPEROR GRATIAN .... 219 APPENDIX TO AUSONIUS 271 THE EVCHARISTICl'S OF PAULINUS PELL.^':US 29.3 INDEX 353 AUSONIUS OPUSCULA — D. MAGNI AUSONII OPUSCULA LIBER XVIII EPISTULARUM I. Symmachus AUSONIO Merum mihi gaudium eruditionis tuae scripta tri- buerunt, quae Capuae locatus accepi. erat quippe in his oblita Tulliano melle festivitas et sermonis mei non tarn vera^ quam blaflda laudatio. quid igitur magis mirer, sententiae incertus addubito, ornamenta oris an pectoris tui. quippe ita facundia antistas ce- teris, ut sit formido rescribere ; ita benigne nostra conprobas, ut libeat non tacere. si plura de te prae- dicem, videbor niutuuni scabere et magis imitator tui esse adloquii quam probator. simul quod ipse nihil ostentandi gratia facis, verendum est genuina in te bona tamquam adfectata laudare. unum hoc tamen a nobis indubitata veritate cognosce, neminem esse niortalium quern prae te diligam ; sic vadatuni me lionorabili amore tenuisti. 2 — AUSONIUS BOOK XVIII THE EPISTLES I. Symmachus to AUSONIUS Your learned pages, which I received while stay- ing at Capua, brought me sheer delight. For there was in them a certain gaiety overlaid with honey from Tully's hive, and some eulogy on my discourse flattering rather than deserved. And so I am at a loss to decide which to admire the more—the graces of your diction or of your disposition. Indeed you so far surpass all others in eloquence that I fear to write in reply ; you so generously approve my essays that I am glad not to keep silence. If I say more in your praise, I shall seem to be ''scratching your back" and to be copying more than complimenting your address to me. Moreover, since you do nothing consciously for the sake of display, I must beware of praising your natural good qualities as though they were studied. Tliis one thing, however, I must tell you as an absolute fact—that there is no man alive whom I love more than you, so deeply pledged in honest affection have vou always held me. B 2 AUSONIUS Set in eo mihi verecundus niniio plus videre. quod libclli tui arguis proditorem. nam facilius est av- dentes favillas ore compiimere quam luculenti operis servare secretum. cum semel a te profectum car- men est; ius omne posuisti : oratio publicata res libera est. an vereris aemuli venena lectoris, ne libellus tuns admorsu duri dentis uratiir? tibi uni ad hoc locorum nihil gratia praestitit aut dempsit invidia. ingratis scaevo cuique proboque laudabihs es. proinde cassas dehinc seclude tbrmidines et in- dulge stilo, ut saepe pi'odaris. certe aliquod didas- calicum seu protrepticum nostro quoque nomini carmen adiudica. fac periculum silentii mei, quod etsi tibi exhibere opto, tamen spondere non audeo. novi ego, quae sit prurigo emuttiendi operis, quod probaris. nam quodam pacto societatem laudis ad- fectat, qui aliena bene dicta primus enuntiat. ea {)ropter in comoediis summatim quidem gloriam scriptores tulerunt, Roscio tamen atque Ambivio ceterisque actoribus fama non defuit. Ergo tali negotio expende otium tuum et novis voluminibus ieiunia nostra sustenta. quod si iac- tantiae fugax garrulum indicem pertimescis, praesta etiam tu silentium mihi, ut tiito simulem nostra esse, quae scripseris. vale. ' Q. Rosciu.s Gallus, a freedman of Lanuvium, was raised to equestriiin rank bj* Sulla and defended by Cicero in a speech still extant. His fame as a comic actor made hi< THE EPISTLES But in this 1 think you are excessively modest, that you complain of me for playing traitor to your book. For it is easier to hold hot coals in one's mouth than to keep the secret of a brilliant work. Once you have let a poem out of your hands, you have i-enounced all your rights : a speech delivered is common property. Or do you fear the venom of some jealous reader, and that your book may smart from the snap of his rude fangs ? You are the one man who u[) to now has owed nothing to partiality, lost nothing through jealousy. Involuntarily every- one, perverse or honest, finds you admirable. There- fore banish henceforth your groundless fears, and let your pen run on so that you may often be betrayed. At any rate assign some didactic or hortatory' poem to my name also. Run the risk of my keeping silence ; and though I desire to give you proof of it, yet I dare not guarantee it. Well I know how I itch to give voice to your work when you are so popular. For somehow he secures a partnership in the glory who first pronounces another's neat phrases. That is why in comedy authors have won but slight renown, while Roscius, Ambivius,^ and the other players have had no lack of fame. So spend your leisure in such occupation and re- lieve my famine with fresh books. But if in your flight from vainglory you dread a chattering in- former, do you also guarantee me your silence, that I may safely pretend that what you have written is mine ! Farewell. name proverbial (rjy. Horace, Epist.ii. i. 82). Ambivius was intimately associated with Terence, in most of whose plays he acted. AUSONIUS II. AUSONIUS SyM MACHO MoDo intellego, quam mellea res sit oratio quani ; delinifica et quam suada facundia. persuasisti mihi, quod epistulae meae aput Capuam tibi redditae con- cinnatio inhumana non esset ; set hoc non diutius, quam dum epistulam tuam legi, quae me blanditiis iuhiantem tuis velut suco nectaris delibuta perducit. ubi enim chartulam pono et me ipsum interrogo, turn absinthium meum resipit et circumlita melle tuo pocula depi'ehendo. si vero, id quod saepe facio, ad epistulam tuam redii^ rursus inhcior : et rursum ille suavissimus, ille floi'idus tui sermonis adflatus deposita lectione vanescit et testimonii pondus pro- hibet inesse dulcedini. hoc me velut aerius bratteae fucus aut picta nebula non longius. quam dum vi- detur, oblectat chamaeleontis bestiolae vice, quae de subiectis sumit colorem. alind sentio ex epistula tua^ aliud ex conscientia mea. et tu me audes fa- cundissimorum hominum laude dignari ? tu, inquam, mihi ista, qui te ultra emendationem omnium pro- tulisti ? quisquamne ita nitet, ut conparatus tibi non sordeat ? quis ita Aesopi venustatem, quis so- phisticas Isocratis conc-lusiones, quis ad enthyme- mata Demosthenis aut opulentiam Tullianam aut proprietatem nostri Maronis accedat ? quis ita ad- fectet singula, ut tu imples omnia ? quid enim aliud ' A mode of .ulministerinp; bitter medioine. '•;). Lucretius. 6 — THE EPISTLES II. — AusoNius TO Symmachus Now 1 understand how honey-sweet is the power of speech, how enchanting and j)ersuasive a thing is that eloquence I You have made me believe my letter delivered to you at Capua was not a barbarous I compilation ; but this only for so long as am actu- ally reading your letter, which is so spread, as it were, with the syrop of your nectar as to over- persuade me Avhile I hang agape over its allure- ments. For as soon as I lay down your page and question myself, back comes the taste of my own wormwood, and I realize that the cup is smeared round with your honey. ^ If indeed—as I often do I return to your letter, I am enticed again: and then again that most soothing, that most fragrant per- fume of your words dies away when I have done reading, and denies that sweetness carries weight as evidence. Like the Haunting glitter of tinsel or a tinted cloud, it delights me only for so long as I see it—like that little creature the chameleon, which takes its colour from whatever is beneath it. Your letter makes me feel one thing, my own conscience another. And do you venture to count me worthy of praise belonging to the most eloquent ? Do you, above all writers I say, speak so of me—you who soar in faultlessness ? What author is there so brilliant, l>ut he appears unpolished by comparison with you ? Who like you can approach the charm of Aesop, the logical deductions of Isocrates, the arguments of Demosthenes, the richness of Tully, or the felicity of our own Maro ? Wlio can aspire to such success in any one of these, as you fully attain in them all ? For what else are vou but the concentrated ALISON I us es, quam ex omni boiiarum artium iageniu collecta perfectio ? Haec, doniine mi fill Syiumache, noa vereor. ne in te blandius dicta videantur esse quani verius. et expertus cs fidem meani mentis atqiie dictorum, dum in comitatu degimus ambo aevo dispari, ubi tu veteris militiae praemia tiro mei'uisti, ego tirocinium iam veteranus exercui. in comitatu tibi verus fui, nedum me peregre existimes conposita fabulari. in comitatu, inquam, qui frontes hominum aperit, men- tes tegit, ibi me et parentem et amicum et, si quid utroque carius est, cariorem fuisse sensisti. set abe- amus ab his : ne ista haec conmemoratio ad illam Sosiae formidinem videatur accedere. lilud, quod paene praeterii, qua adfectatione ad- didisti, ut ad te didascalicum aliquod opusculum aut sermonem protrepticum mitterem ? ego te docebo docendus adhuc, si essem id aetatis, ut discerem ? aut ego te vegetum atque alacrem commonebo ? eadem opera et Musas hortabor, ut canant, et maria, ut effluant, et auras, ut vigeant, et ignes, ut caleant, admonebo : et, si quid invitis quoque nobis natura fit, superHuus instigator agitabo.